Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[uberfish]

Congrats on picking the best elf leader. That start really doesn't look very good though, cotton is the worst calendar resource and usually comes in multiples to make up for it.

[Mardoc]

First up, led by PBEM12 Evil Nemesis Kyan and the purveyor of putrid plans himself, Twinkletoes - the Balseraphs!

Very good. A couple minor things to add. First, the Balseraphs also have the ability to add considerable happiness to their cities by adding slave cages. They get an extra happy per variety of race they acquire. Everybody else is human, but we're a unique race, and therefore a war against us with Courtesans, Taskmasters, or while Kyan's running Slavery can result in adding +1 happy, +1 culture, and +1 Bard GPP to every city of his. Assuming a victory, anyway. But that means he's got an incentive for even just harassment wars. It's also a motivation for him to end up in Undercouncil and Slave Trade, to buy his slaves outright; I'm pretty sure that even gives him a chance of orcish and dwarven slaves, even if they're not in the game.

Second, Revelry isn't just a free Golden Age - it's a free double length golden age.

Third, Kyan's also got access to a fairly nice defensive building, the Hall of Mirrors. It adds +1 happiness to the city, so he's likely to build it all over the place, but what it does is create Illusionary copies of any enemy unit next to the city, that last somewhat longer than normal illusions. If you park outside a Balseraph city, he'll be getting free summons of equal power to our army, which which he can either keep home for defense, or attack us with to whittle us down. Illusions can't kill, but they can put us to death's door, which is usually enough. It's not as nasty as the Malakim Citadel of Light, but it's an extra homefield advantage.

Mimics can be extra dangerous in single player games, because you can manipulate the AI into doing what you want, and to fighting limited wars. I don't expect them to shine as much here where you don't get to decide when the war's over.

Finally, a even more minor detail. In FFH, more so than BtS, culture tends to come in dedicated buildings. Libraries don't give an incidental culture boost, for instance, and several religions give something other than culture, as well. That enhances Creative somewhat, since there isn't really a dual-purpose option to get your culture. On the other hand, if we end up in a Culture war with Kyan, we'll need to waste hammers on direct culture production, and even then we're likely to only lose more slowly. There's a distinct possibility that Kyan will go for a Culture victory, since he gets, much more so than the rest of us, direct culture producers in addition to the multiplier buildings.

All in all, the Balseraphs do have a lot going for them. One of which is the potential 6 happiness extra compared to a normal civ, through aggressive use of the Freak show and Slave Cages; they can end up with cities nearly as large as ours!

[Mardoc]

And Mardoc, but I suspect you'll pay that back in spades by preventing me from doing stupid stuff down the road.)

I'll certainly try...

In this installment, we take a look at the enigmatic Rawkking Goodguy (henceforth, RG) and his Hippus!

Here, I have some disagreements. First, I'm not sure what you're talking about when you mention Chariot siege - yes, chariots are enabled at the Siege Workshop, but they're not really better than Horse Archers, and they certainly can't inflict any collateral that normal horses can't do.

On the other hand, + withdrawal chance and a Flanking promotion or two, and you've transformed your horses into fast catapults.

Secondly, though, and more importantly, I do expect to see mages and/or Priests from the Hippus, because those guys can get to be actually quite speedy. Start with the Mobility promotion, unlocked at Horseback Riding. Add in Body mana for Haste, and you end up with 3-move mages. Compare that to catapults at a lowly 1 move. They still can't keep up with the main army, but they can give it the old college try, anyway. Of the religions, I think Empyrean is the best fit, simply because it tends to produce fast mover uniques as well, but mostly his pick will depend on the situation.

Aside from the boost to horse units, the other advantage of the Hippus is that hardly anything's off the table. Aside from gunpowder, nothing is forbidden or even weakened compared to the base game. With Rhoanna to back him up, Rawk can still put together a complete Octopus Overlords army, or a strong stack of melee. Thoth's a great believer in doing the unexpected; depending on how much influence he has, we may see some surprises out of Rawk.

Our bonus to attacks in the woods also help with hopefully pointing the rush elsewhere, as Mounted units are the only ones who don't get the forest defense bonus in the first place. Usually it's a very minor benefit, that attacking into forest doesn't hurt as bad as it might, but if he brings a horde of horsies, it's one more thing in our favor.

Finally, a possibility for cooperation with RG - if we can agree to swap air and nature mana back and forth with whoever's currently training Adepts or upgrading to Mages, we can both end up with free Air I and Nature I spells on our units. Admittedly, neither's *that* great, but Air II , Air III, and Nature III are all very nice spells, so anything that puts us close to them is worth having. Nature II is also nice: +1 Str on Recon units is quite handy if that's what we have, and the elven bonuses push in that direction anyway.

[Mardoc]

Congrats on picking the best elf leader. That start really doesn't look very good though, cotton is the worst calendar resource and usually comes in multiples to make up for it.

Thanks for popping in, uberfish! I'd be curious to hear your take on why Arendel's better than Thessa; I personally would rank them about the same. As Elves, you likely need mages anyway for collateral, and I think Expansive and Spiritual are about on the same level.

I think it's pretty obvious why they're both better than Amelanchier, though. Defender is just rubbish.

PS - chatting with Thoth recently, I mentioned that this may be one game where we can outpost him. Now that Rawkking has made a thread, we're going to have to get cracking on that .

[Gaspar]

Congrats on picking the best elf leader. That start really doesn't look very good though, cotton is the worst calendar resource and usually comes in multiples to make up for it.

I agree re: Elf leader (more in a minute.) Start definitely looks weak to me as well, hopefully there's something more fun in the fog.

Very good. A couple minor things to add. First, the Balseraphs also have the ability to add considerable happiness to their cities by adding slave cages. They get an extra happy per variety of race they acquire. Everybody else is human, but we're a unique race, and therefore a war against us with Courtesans, Taskmasters, or while Kyan's running Slavery can result in adding +1 happy, +1 culture, and +1 Bard GPP to every city of his. Assuming a victory, anyway. But that means he's got an incentive for even just harassment wars. It's also a motivation for him to end up in Undercouncil and Slave Trade, to buy his slaves outright; I'm pretty sure that even gives him a chance of orcish and dwarven slaves, even if they're not in the game.

I must confess, I've only really played a 100 turns or so as the Balseraphs. So all these previews are mostly gleaned from the manual. I had forgotten about slave cages. In a lot of ways, I think the Balseraphs are one of two Civs most set up to oppose us, however.

Second, Revelry isn't just a free Golden Age - it's a free double length golden age.

This I knew, not sure why I didn't mention it.

Third, Kyan's also got access to a fairly nice defensive building, the Hall of Mirrors. It adds +1 happiness to the city, so he's likely to build it all over the place, but what it does is create Illusionary copies of any enemy unit next to the city, that last somewhat longer than normal illusions. If you park outside a Balseraph city, he'll be getting free summons of equal power to our army, which which he can either keep home for defense, or attack us with to whittle us down. Illusions can't kill, but they can put us to death's door, which is usually enough. It's not as nasty as the Malakim Citadel of Light, but it's an extra homefield advantage.

Forgot about this as well. In a variety of different ways, Balseraphs are a pain in the ass.

Mimics can be extra dangerous in single player games, because you can manipulate the AI into doing what you want, and to fighting limited wars. I don't expect them to shine as much here where you don't get to decide when the war's over.

Ultimately, I'm not super concerned about Mimics.

Finally, a even more minor detail. In FFH, more so than BtS, culture tends to come in dedicated buildings. Libraries don't give an incidental culture boost, for instance, and several religions give something other than culture, as well. That enhances Creative somewhat, since there isn't really a dual-purpose option to get your culture. On the other hand, if we end up in a Culture war with Kyan, we'll need to waste hammers on direct culture production, and even then we're likely to only lose more slowly. There's a distinct possibility that Kyan will go for a Culture victory, since he gets, much more so than the rest of us, direct culture producers in addition to the multiplier buildings.

Highly doubt Kyan will go for cultural victory, but yeah, the Bals are in several ways one of the better options for it. Still, no question they're the Civ most positioned well to get land by peaceful means through all their various toys.

All in all, the Balseraphs do have a lot going for them. One of which is the potential 6 happiness extra compared to a normal civ, through aggressive use of the Freak show and Slave Cages; they can end up with cities nearly as large as ours!

Yep.

I'll certainly try...
Here, I have some disagreements. First, I'm not sure what you're talking about when you mention Chariot siege - yes, chariots are enabled at the Siege Workshop, but they're not really better than Horse Archers, and they certainly can't inflict any collateral that normal horses can't do.

This is the stuff I need you around for. I seemed to remember Chariots doing some collateral. Clearly, I'm an idiot.

On the other hand, + withdrawal chance and a Flanking promotion or two, and you've transformed your horses into fast catapults.

Yeah, I was trying to hint at this in the preview.

Secondly, though, and more importantly, I do expect to see mages and/or Priests from the Hippus, because those guys can get to be actually quite speedy. Start with the Mobility promotion, unlocked at Horseback Riding. Add in Body mana for Haste, and you end up with 3-move mages. Compare that to catapults at a lowly 1 move. They still can't keep up with the main army, but they can give it the old college try, anyway. Of the religions, I think Empyrean is the best fit, simply because it tends to produce fast mover uniques as well, but mostly his pick will depend on the situation.

I still think they're more likely to use Cavalry-pults than lots of Arcane/Spiritual units, because Haste + Mobility can both also be taken advantage of by their horse units too. I would definitely want to take advantage of the breathtaking speed available to them were I a Hippus player. Just have to bring more units.

Aside from the boost to horse units, the other advantage of the Hippus is that hardly anything's off the table. Aside from gunpowder, nothing is forbidden or even weakened compared to the base game. With Rhoanna to back him up, Rawk can still put together a complete Octopus Overlords army, or a strong stack of melee. Thoth's a great believer in doing the unexpected; depending on how much influence he has, we may see some surprises out of Rawk.

RG is a wildcard, really know nothing about him. Between his Civ choice and his lurkers though, I fully expect him to be a large threat.

Our bonus to attacks in the woods also help with hopefully pointing the rush elsewhere, as Mounted units are the only ones who don't get the forest defense bonus in the first place. Usually it's a very minor benefit, that attacking into forest doesn't hurt as bad as it might, but if he brings a horde of horsies, it's one more thing in our favor.

I'd say comfortably that we're the worst civ for him to attack in this game for the slowdown his army will face, even more so than Elohim, because when you're talking 5 and 6 speed units, he could hit them hard on T1, before they can pop Sanctuary. Our trees don't need to be activated, and we'll always get a chance to react.

Finally, a possibility for cooperation with RG - if we can agree to swap air and nature mana back and forth with whoever's currently training Adepts or upgrading to Mages, we can both end up with free Air I and Nature I spells on our units. Admittedly, neither's *that* great, but Air II , Air III, and Nature III are all very nice spells, so anything that puts us close to them is worth having. Nature II is also nice: +1 Str on Recon units is quite handy if that's what we have, and the elven bonuses push in that direction anyway.

Definitely this makes sense, even though both Air and Nature are pretty mediocre in the grand scheme, no reason whatsoever not to take advantage of free promos if we can get on his good side.

Thanks for popping in, uberfish! I'd be curious to hear your take on why Arendel's better than Thessa; I personally would rank them about the same. As Elves, you likely need mages anyway for collateral, and I think Expansive and Spiritual are about on the same level.

I think it's pretty obvious why they're both better than Amelanchier, though. Defender is just rubbish.

In my mind, the difference comes down to Creative vs Arcane. Arcane might really help with mages, but that is quite literally all it helps with. Creative helps us on T1 and forever more, Thessa might as well be Exp/Nothing for the first 100-120 turns of the game or so. There's other reasons, but for me, that's the decider. Not saying I'd never play an Arcane leader, but its a definite sacrifice.

PS - chatting with Thoth recently, I mentioned that this may be one game where we can outpost him. Now that Rawkking has made a thread, we're going to have to get cracking on that .

Um, get cracking? Have you seen the ridiculous amount of spam in this thread yet? I'll take the pepsi challenge with anyone that this thread will have the most content in PBEMVII. Now its just up to the lurkers to keep responding. And I probably shouldn't have multiquoted, but instead used 6 separate posts, rego-style to reply here.

[Mardoc]

Um, get cracking? Have you seen the ridiculous amount of spam in this thread yet? I'll take the pepsi challenge with anyone that this thread will have the most content in PBEMVII. Now its just up to the lurkers to keep responding. And I probably shouldn't have multiquoted, but instead used 6 separate posts, rego-style to reply here.

Spam? Nah, this isn't spam, this is content!

(well, except maybe this post)

[Gaspar]

Its time now for the 3rd in an ongoing series...



This time featuring confessed drunkard (or Irishman, I never remember) Brian Shanahan and his Elohim monks!



Oops, wrong folder... I mean Brian Shanahan and his Elohim monks!



The Elohim also have two options for leader - Ethne the White and Brian's choice, Einion Logos:



Einion is pretty clearly the superior leader of the two, with FFH's powerful Philosophical trait. Philo is a pretty clear Tier-2 trait in BTS, but it jumps to top tier here, IMO, with Financial. The beauty of Philosophical is that the game structure makes it super easy to leverage. Why? Because in FFH, every city is a GP farm. Since all but a few civs will run Aristofarms all game long, most teams will have food surplus coming out their ears by the midgame, so you can run all the specialists you need, provided you have the right buildings. The downside to this play is in FFH, until you get some of the later civics, you're pretty well restricted to mixed GPP pools, but still Philosophical is much easier to leverage here. Not only that, but they get double production speed on both of the key science buildings, Elder Councils, which you'll build in pretty much every city, and Libraries, which you'll eventually build in most of them. This also means they can be quicker to the Great Library wonder, which is very key to a specialist play in FFH. (Note I don't say economy, since your economy is still 80 billion aristofarms.) The Elohim leaders are both saddled with the crappy defender as a second trait, a trait so bad it makes BTS protective look good. The less said about it the better. They also get "Tolerant" in the tooltip, but that's more a civilization ability than a leader trait, so I'll discuss it there.

Let's take a deeper look at those creepy Elohim:


Starting tech: Ancient Chants. One of the better options, it means you're one tech away from the uber early game Civic, God King.

Hero: Corlindale. Corlindale is one of the more unique heroes in the game, but he's been well discussed on these forums before, so I'll keep it brief. Basically he's an Archmage hero available at Fanatacism, an 1800 beaker tech down the religious line they're likely to follow. He has 0 base str, so if you can get an assassin near him, he's meat, but if say, the Elohim can get a city near Letum Frigus, you could be seeing Snowfall around T120. If that happens here... GG Brian. He can also sacrifice himself to cast peace, which ends all wars and removes all units from Elohim borders. Basically Seven Pines on roids. Usually people will talk about some nonsense cast peace/Life III nonsense that's never going to happen in this game here. The beauty of Corlindale is early Archmage hero, the rest of the stuff is flavor in a MP game.

World Spell: Sanctuary. Sanctuary is the best defensive spell in the game. It kicks all units from Elohim lands and doesn't let them return for 20 turns (on quick.) Basically makes fighting any war against them a pain in the ass. It also is a huge hammer in diplomacy, often encouraging players to go in another direction because of it. If you get the sense that Elohim are intended to be the toughest nuts to crack, you're right.

Unique Units: Monk, Devout. Monks are nice unit available at Priesthood, a 6STR/2 move generic disciple unit. Because they're disciple units, they can replace the tier melee in your in army at this point and be hard to counter, because the anti-disciple promotion isn't available until later. Devouts are assassins with Life 1 and Channelling 1, and they can promote up the priest line. They lose Marksman, however. A pair of pretty solid units.

Unique Buildings: Reliquary, Chancel of Guardians. Reliquary gives spirit guide to any units built in a city. Probably want to build one of these before you build your heroes, but otherwise, meh. Chancel of Guardians is another crappy defensive building, because y'know, the Elohim don't have enough defensive traits.

Palace Mana: Spirit, Nature, Water. Spirit mana is nice, especially against the Sheaim, who are likely to field spectres, and hence the courage spell at adept level is quite handy. Spirit mana also gives +5% GPP, which can be nice if you stack it. Water mana is handy for the adept level spell Spring, which turns desert to plains. Nature, apparently with some nice trading we can all get Nature II for free. (Actually, we'll only need 1 trade for that, since we're likely to build Song of Autumn, which provides nature mana.)

Specials: Tolerant. The Elohim can build other Civ's buildings and units, should they capture them. They can even build the palace, which essentially has the effect of changing the palace mana, but its also going to relocate your capital, so you probably don't want to do a lot of it unless you really need the mana. Its more useful for say, capturing a Sheaim city and spamming out Pyre Zombies, or capturing a Balseraph city for all their toys. The problem, of course, is you have to actually capture a city for this to work. Still, its a neat trait. The Elohim also get vision on all Unique Features at game start, though dollars to donuts that somehow got screwed up for them when all the Features got moved around in the map making process. They also can lower the AC with their completely flavor repeatable ritual.

Likely Strategy: Well, I'd say sit back and tech seems like a reasonable option, no? You can sort of kind of execute a monk rush if you really beeline Priesthood, but Priesthood is no cheap tech, so I doubt we'll see that this game. But yeah, pushing for quick Aristofarms and then churning out the Prophets for an Altar victory is one option. Religion-wise, Elohim have lots of options, though because they get a dirt cheap Archmage natively, no need to necessarily grab OO or CoE for that. They can benefit from AV, but I see that unlikely with Sheaim, Bals and Us all in the game that can benefit more from it. Most likely Order or Empy would suit their long term needs, but they can be fearsome in any situation, simply because of how many defensive advantages they acquire.

Drawbacks: Hi, could I interest you in playing with essentially 1 leader trait? No? Ok then. That's the biggest issue, Defender and Tolerant are both extremely situational, so Einion is essentially: Einion Logos (Phi/Nothing). That's probably more than anything why I picked these guys 3rd rather than 1st. Other than that, though, they're a pretty well-rounded Civ, with access to everything and lots of moderately useful toys. Devouts really aren't better than Assassins, but if you drive ahead for Shadows, you shouldn't miss Marksman too much.

The Players: Brian is a regular around here, but this is his first actual game, so hard to say too much. He's been lurking long enough that I imagine he's a solid player, but I can't speak to tendencies or anything of the sort. His DL's are Sareln and Ichabod, who are both experienced players. Ichabod in particular has shown to be both brilliant and ruthless in his play here, but I don't expect either of them to do much driving, neither is an especially prolific poster in their own threads, let alone in someone else's.

How they'll affect us: Well, as the other heavily defensive Civ, they make a logical ally, though global positioning will impact that a lot more than Civ traits and such. They're unlikely to be interested in pursuing FoL and AV, our two most likely religions. We make a poor choice for attacking with Monks, as we'll likely have FoL and several Ancient Forests by the time they come visit, so we might even get some free Treant spawns if they were to attack. Ultimately, they're an insular Civ, and as such, likely won't directly impact our game a whole lot. All bets are off, of course, if they're our nearest neighbor.

This concludes part 3 of Better Know a FFH2 Opponent!

[Mardoc]

This time featuring confessed drunkard (or Irishman, I never remember) Brian Shanahan and his Elohim monks!

This time, I have barely anything to add. About all I will add is that I can imagine circumstances, if Nicolae is relentless in boosting the AC, that the rest of us might want to bribe Brian into lowering it for us.

Well, one more detail. In the right circumstances, Sanctuary can be a powerful offensive spell, too, allowing you to completely focus on offense without worrying about your backlines. Particularly against, say, the Hippus, keeping them from being able to counterattack is nice. I haven't tested this, but it might even prevent counterattacks against cities you conquer during a war.

Still, I expect Sanctuary to have as much impact through the threat as the actual execution, just like March of the Trees.

[Gaspar]

Jesus, why did I decide I'd try and get these long ass previews up before the game? I hope you all appreciate the amount of work going into making myself look stupid! MOAR PAGE VIEWS, MOAR!!

And... we're off:



This episode focuses on the Adventaru's themselves, Acostolas & Mackoti, leading the Grigori:



The lone Grigori leader is Cassiel, whose back story is very interesting, so if you're interested in the game and haven't read the lore, I encourage you to do so. Nonetheless, here's his Civolopedia entry, which reads a bit more like Fan Fiction than lore, but gets the point across:



Cassiel is the lone Adaptive leader in this game, and by general rule, the adaptive leaders are the strongest in the game, in my opinion. Cassiel, however, is probably the weakest of them. Cassiel is Phi/Ind to start the game. Philosophical, as we discussed earlier, is a very strong trait in FFH, doubly so given the Grigori game is all about GPs. The downside is their opening trait, Industrious basically has 0 value in the period prior to their first switch. The only wonders like to be available prior to said switch are Heron Throne and Bone Palace, and you really don't want to be building wonders that early in this game anyway, unless you truly have a deathwish. Forges come at the smelting technology, and there's virtually no way those will be in play that early. So you basically have a dead trait for 75 turns. Then you go Financial, and you're Phi/Fin, a deadly combination. I'll bet every penny I own their first switch is to Fin. Regardless, Cassiel is still a strong leader, and Phi alone can carry the day for the first bit of the game anyway.

The Grigori themselves are interesting - they're a good beginner FFH Civ, because they are focused, perhaps even moreso than our Elves are.



Starting tech: Crafting. Leads towards mining and you're happy if you wines nearby.

Civilization Trait: Agnostic. No religion ever for the Grigori, which is sort of the point. That's a huge sacrifice in this game, given what Religion gives you. We'll talk about what they get to make up for it down the road, but suffice to say, this is definitely the primary downside of the Civ. Unlike the Illians, who can get Religion in Unrestricted Leaders, the Grigori cannot ever get them, as its tied to the Civ. Not material for this game, but relevant nonetheless.

World Spell: Ardor. This resets the GP counter, which is important, because invariably Grigori's first few GPs will be Adventurer's, and then suddenly you're finding things like Academies hard to come by down the road. Its a very nice spell, though.

Hero: None.

Unique Units: Adventurer, Luonnotar, Dragon Slayer, Grigori Medic. Adventurer's are the Grigori replacement for Heroes, since they get none. No Civ hero, no religious hero. Given that each civ usually has at least 3 heroes available to them, that's no small cut. Adventurers are units born from Great Person points (The Palace provides them, as does the Grigori Unique building) and they start with the Hero promotion. They can then be promoted up any line except Disciple - which means that Grigori's can have basically whatever kind of hero you want. The downside is not only does it costs you GPs, but you also have to have researched the tech. While you might be able to get an Archmage hero as soon as you've researched Strength of Will, you still need to actually research Strength of Will, which is many beakers. Most often you'll see quick Melee or Mounted heroes from the Grigori. Luonnotar are Druid replacements, available at Strength of Will rather than Commune with Nature, they have a higher base str, but no divine spells. Dragon Slayer are the Grigori Champions, a flavor unit with the Dragon Slaying and Courage promotions. Grigori Medics are the Grigori replacement for priests, available at Medicine and they start with Medic III. They're great healers, but they come awfully late.

Blocked Units: None, except all the disciple units they can't build because they can't build the temples. :P

Unique Buildings: Grigori Tavern, Adventurer's Guild. The Grigori Tavern is a tavern with Adventurer GPP. Advernturer's Guild is a Barracks, with Adventurer GPP, and a +25% GP generation rate. Simply put, Grigori Tavern, like the normal Tavern, pretty much sucks. Adventurer's Guilds are nice, but don't come until Currency.

Blocked Buildings: Anything with the word Temple in it.

Palace Mana: Water, Spirit, Enchantment. The Grigori Palace also provides 2 Adventurer GPP and increases GP chance by 15%. One of the better palaces in the game for passive benefits. Enchantment's the only mana there we haven't discussed yet - it provides a passive +1 happy, in addition to allowing the quite useful Enchanted Blade at the adept level.

Likely Strategy: The Grigori leader can go a few different routes. You can rush with an early hero, especially since you're likely to get Bronze sooner than others, between the Crafting start and little incentive to go down the religious line other than maybe for God King and Elder Councils. They can also get an academy out super fast, and be very strong with the Phi/Fin combo in the midgame, then sitting on those adventurers and churning them into a devastatingly well-promoted mage force. I'd suspect the latter is what our players will try in this game.

Drawbacks: No religion is very limiting. It doesn't just take religion off the table, it takes several Civics off the table, lots of units, heroes, etc. You really have to be dedicated to a strategy to make the most of the sick number of GPs the Grigori can churn out, and decide if you'd rather be popping out heroes or GPs of another sort. If you let yourself get muddled, you can end up being okay at a bunch of things and not so great at anything.

The players: I know very little about Acostolas, other than he pushed this game to happen. He's new to RB, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. mackoti is a solid player, he's likely to be more involved than some of our other lurkers. Illios is a solid FFH player, he can certainly provide a guiding hand to his players. All I can really say is mackoti is aggressive, not sure if that will rub off on Acostolas or not.

How they'll affect us: Well, with no religion and solid traits I suspect them to tech well and be challenging for the "Firsts" in the tree not in the religion line. I'd certainly be up for borrowing the Enchantment mana at some point, though if we go archer heavy, we need the Enchantment II spell, Flaming Arrows. I could see them being a rush target for Hippus or Sheaim, since neither Elves nor Elohim are the sort of Civ you want to rush, that leaves only the Grigori and each other as tasty targets. Nothing personal guys, but better you than me.

And so ends another chapter in this saga, Better Know a FFH Opponent.

[Gaspar]

We have a save! I took your advice and moved the initial scout SW-SW. Which was fortuitous, as there was an Ancient Tower there. Subtle. :P

Anyway, look at this much better situation:



Yes, by the by, the Tomb of Succelus is covered in an Ancient Forest. Win.

Anyway, I see three potential spots for City 1, circled above. My Current inclination is the tile the Scout is on, as it doesn't get a bunch of crappy peak tiles like the alternatives, but Yellow and Red Circles get 2 food.

I'll open this to the peanut gallery before I make a final decision.